An antibacterial bacterial key is disclosed in Japanese Patent Application NO. 7-107373. An antibacterial function is added to a keyboard because a musical instrument having a keyboard is often used commonly by a large number of persons, particularly, in school, so that there is a fear that bacteria attached on fingers of a person be transferred to fingers of another person who next plays the musical instrument through the keyboard. An antibacterial key comprises a key stick and a key cover adhered to the upper surface of the key stick. The key cover is made of synthetic resin containing an antibacterial agent. Specifically, calcium phosphate including metal silver is used as the antibacterial agent. A predetermined amount of the antibacterial agent is added to a palette of acrylic resin, uniformly distributed therein, and molded by injection molding. According to this structure, the antibacterial effect of the antibacterial agent included in the key cover prevents bacteria from proliferating on the key, thus maintaining the cleanliness on the key as well as preventing discoloration of the key.
However, with the conventional antibacterial key, since the key cover is formed by injection molding acrylic resin containing an antibacterial agent, the antibacterial agent acts as an impurity during the injection molding, thus disadvantageously causing difficulties in producing a uniform key cover, for example, moire patterns may appear on the surface of a molded key cover. Therefore, the yield of the molds is reduced, and this causes the cost to increase.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an antibacterial key which is capable of readily adding an antibacterial function at a low cost irrespective of a material or a manufacturing method of a key cover.